


it's a quarter after one, i'm a little drunk

by wellhellofuture



Category: Chef RPF
Genre: F/M, RPF, This hurts, bon appetit test kitchen, braffitz, mega angst here, no really there is literally no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:29:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21724738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wellhellofuture/pseuds/wellhellofuture
Summary: "I really shouldn’t be doing this.He's asleep in the other room and I told him I’d stay up to finish this last episode of Buffy but instead I ended up finishing the bottle and thinking about you.There are so many questions I want to ask you."
Relationships: Brad Leone/Claire Saffitz
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	it's a quarter after one, i'm a little drunk

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tags above. This is NOT typical Braffitz fic. This is not an AU in that, in this setting, Brad is married and Claire is in a relationship. There is nothing but angst here. If that is not what you're looking for, this is not the fic for you.
> 
> Warning for mentions of leaving a serious romantic partner for someone else/brief tones of emotional cheating.
> 
> Title from Lady Antebellum's Need You Now.
> 
> Reminder that this is RPF and fiction and not at all relevant to these people's lives.

_iNotes, Dec. 7, 2019, 1:03 am_

I really shouldn’t be doing this.

He's asleep in the other room and I told him I’d stay up to finish this last episode of Buffy but instead I ended up finishing the bottle and thinking about you.

There are so many questions I want to ask you.

They’re the kind of questions I’d be embarrassed if anyone knew I asked and the kind of questions I’ve always wanted to know the answers to. They’re the kind of questions I only think of when I’m drunk and sad and lonely.

He was gone all last month. Work stuff.

I thought about you a lot.

You are equal parts the man I thought I never wanted and the guy I always knew I’d fall for. You’re strong and loud and smart in all the ways I am not. You’re all over the place and reckless and never think twice about anything. 

You make me feel like I can do anything. Sometimes, the only thing I want to do is be able to forget.

Sometimes I _do_ forget. When you’re next to me and your eyes are smiling more than your mouth and it’s all I can do to keep from blurting out, “Let’s be crazy and try it.” I forget about him and her and everything else except you. And then Hunzi calls cut or someone drops something and you just go and be you in front of everyone like it’s not special at all. Like it wasn’t all just for me.

Like you can’t see that I never really let go of you.

I read a quote once that said sometimes letting go of someone means not letting go of them at all.

I can never let go of you.

I know I didn’t do a very good job hiding it, in the beginning. Especially when we first met. God, I was desperate for you. Looking back, I think you knew. But you were you, and you had this beautiful girlfriend who was so annoyingly nice and you were just sweet enough that it could be written off as being friendly.

But I thought - I think everyone thought, a little - that it wasn’t just me who couldn’t stop staring.

And then you two made it through all the fights, the will-we-won’t-we’s and then she was pregnant and you had a ring and it was as it always is.

I never took you for the skinny blonde type. Doesn’t make it feel any less like a betrayal, though.

(Maybe you just like girls who aren’t me.)

I woke up sweating this morning. We were together in my dream, for the first time since I told him I'd marry him. I replayed it over and over in my head until the image faded.

I felt guilty when he woke up, but it’s like I’m starving and you’re the only thing I can eat.

I usually don’t think about you like this. It’s the wine. But if you were here - which I’m glad you aren’t, that would be messy - I’d ask you about the things that ache in the bottom of my soul.

Why wasn’t I enough?

Enough to get you to leave her, enough to make you want me, enough to be brave enough to try with me.

(I think I was maybe just too me.)

Do you dream about me like I dream about you?

Do you, on the nights when she’s gone and you’re cold and lonely and crave human touch, do you dream about coming home with me? About cooking together and spilling flour on each other and my mom loving you?

(Do you fantasize about the sounds I make when I come?)

If things were different, if they weren’t the way they are, would you want me? Would I be enough, now that you know me?

Did I make up all the hints? Did you know you were ruining me in the very worst (best) way?

When you got drunk on that trip a couple years ago and called me and told me I was the one that got away, did you mean it?

How would you react if I told you that a little part of me will always belong to you?

It’s so dangerous to be writing this on my phone. Two swipes and I could call you. But it’s after midnight and you’re a father and you have kids who are probably asleep and I have nothing to say to you except that I think you might be the most wonderful human on this planet.

No matter how much wine I drink, I still think love is the strongest liquor. And the most inebriating.

You bring out the very best in me. Except when you make me insane, make me feel like throwing away everything good that we both have just to try something stupid.

On the off chance that it might be wonderful.

I still think of you when I see doughnuts. I’m pretty sure I always will.

_Delete note permanently?_

_Yes_

**Author's Note:**

> ouch.
> 
> this one hurt to write.
> 
> this is staying on member lock for the time being bc it's heavy stuff.
> 
> remember, rules of rpf club.


End file.
